Diesel and cooking gas (LPG) prices are unlikely to be hiked even after the end of the Monsoon Session of Parliament next week as the government is wary of taking such a decision at a time when it already has political battles on hand.
Government needs to rethink its over-dependency on imported petrol, and come up with ways to stabilise the Indian rupee.
A 15-year-old girl suffered serious burn injuries after a youth allegedly set her on fire for resisting a rape attempt by him in the Chaurdehara village.
A 'rape victim' was allegedly set ablaze by 6 persons in Dhandari Khurd area in Ludhiana on Thursday.
Indian basket at 6-month low of $49.11 a bbl
Diesel prices have cumulatively risen by Rs 10.68 a litre in 17 instalments since January 2013 when the United Progressive Alliance government had decided on the monthly hikes.
Cement, coal, steel and urea prices are likely to go up
Taking a swipe at the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government at the Centre, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa today charged it with neglecting the state, indicating that it was against her.
The government on Tuesday said it has agreed in-principle to deregulate diesel prices, but is not considering similar proposal for the cooking gas.
It will soon be two years since petrol was decontrolled, but few will happily celebrate this second birthday.
RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das on Friday said that inflation is on a declining trajectory, as it has fallen by 170 basis points from its January 2020 peak. Retail inflation fell to four-month low of 5.91 per cent in March over the previous month, mainly due to easing food prices.
Today we are importing over 80 per cent of our oil needs which gets refined into kerosene, LPG, petrol, diesel, fuel oil, naphtha etc hence not only all our energy needs but also fertilisers and plastics needs are susceptible to international crude prices.
The government's plans to reign in petroleum subsidies to plug the fiscal deficit next financial year are in jeopardy, as a whopping Rs 2.13 lakh-crore revenue loss is expected at the current levels of global crude oil prices and domestic retail prices of controlled products.
Losses on sale of diesel at government-controlled rates have hit a record Rs 19.26 a litre, sending state-owned oil companies scrambling for ways to cover the mounting losses.
Oil pricing freedom as an idea can succeed only if the ownership of the key oil refiners (read the public sector oil companies) ceases to be government-dominated.
As other members of the government have pointed out -- Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh and Chief Economic Advisor Kaushik Basu among them -- India cannot afford to delay increasing prices, given the ballooning subsidy bill.
In order to end use of kerosene -- which often does not reach the intended beneficiaries -- the Delhi government on Tuesday launched an ambitious scheme, where about 3.5 lakh BPL and poor families will get free LPG cylinders and gas stoves.
The arrival of solar power last year has changed the lives of people in rural India.
Maharashtra Director General of Police Subodh Kumar Jaiswal said that the attack was not a result of intelligence failure.
Price hikes of controlled petroleum products such as diesel, cooking gas and kerosene have been happening annually in the month of June, irrespective of the companies' losses.
Oil PSUs, which at the beginning of the fiscal were losing Rs 670 crore (Rs 6.7 billion) per day on selling diesel, domestic cooking gas LPG and kerosene at government controlled rates, are now losing Rs 372 crore (Rs 3.72 billion) a day, industry sources said.
Indian state's generosity is not restricted to its poorest citizens.
Still battling the fallout of last month's steep Rs 7.54 a litre hike in petrol price, the government on Friday said it is not considering raising rates of diesel, domestic gas (LPG) and kerosene for the moment.
India's energy consumption profile is varied.
After being left unchanged for more than 10 months, diesel prices may see an increase of around Rs 2 per litre next month, providing marginal relief to the oil marketing companies (OMCs) that incur a loss of Rs 16.10 on selling every litre.
Nilekani proposes centralised PDS network, model PDS software for transparency.
The state of Bihar will now monitor the public distribution system (PDS) through laptops to check corruption and to provide help to those living below poverty line (BPL), to get their monthly quota of essential commodities including food grain and kerosene oil, officials said.
Beneficiaries of kerosene, LPG and fertiliser subsidies will be able to get direct cash transfers through banks, ATMs or even mobile banking after the UIDAI's recommendations to plug leakages in the system are implemented.
The rates are hikes by almost 8 per cent.
The hike in prices of petroleum goods led to protests in several parts of the country and many state governments announced the withdrawal of value added tax on petroleum products to lessen the impact of the hike on the common man.
A decision on raising diesel prices by Rs 3-5 per litre, kerosene by Rs 2 and LPG by up to Rs 50 per cylinder will be taken after UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi returns from US, top government officials said.
Only 16.4 per cent of Bihar's 1.89 crore families or households have the luxury to light up their residences with electricity, the remaining, nearly 83.6 per cent families are forced to live without electricity, a household amenities and assets in Bihar report released by the Census of India has said.
Fed up with rampant corruption and loss of money through forgery by a middleman led a Mahadalit man, his wife and three children to commit suicide in Bihar's Aurangabad district, police said on Monday.
Apparently upset over delay in the formation of a separate Telangana state, an 18-year-old girl student allegedly committed suicide by immolating herself at Koheda village near Hyderabad on Sunday, the second such death in two days, police said.
Bharatiya Janata Party spokesman Shahnawaz Hussain on Saturday said the country is not being run by a government, but a private limited company whose basic job is to protect the interests of oil companies and not the common people. He was addressing a news conference at the party headquarters in New Delhi on Saturday. He demanded that the union government must immediately rollback the fuel price hike.
The retail prices of petroleum products have moved broadly in line with, or somewhat more than, the rupee cost of oil imports.
At least 16 persons are believed to have committed suicide either by setting themselves ablaze or by hanging since Saturday when All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief Jayalalithaa was sentenced to a four-year jail term in the disproportionate assets case by a special court in Bangalore.
Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) has said its net profit will drop by over 47 per cent to below Rs 10,000 crore (Rs 100 billion) this fiscal if the government forces it to shell out a higher fuel subsidy.
India, the world's third largest energy consumer, has enough petrol, diesel and cooking gas (LPG) in stock to last way beyond the three-week nationwide lockdown, as all plants and supply locations are fully operational, Indian Oil Corp (IOC) chairman Sanjiv Singh said.an Singh, who continued to oversee the mammoth operations of ensuring that fuel reaches every nook and corner despite the loss of his father on the day the 21-day lockdown was declared, said there was no shortage of any fuel in the country and customers should not resort to panic booking of LPG refills.
Exuding confidence that the economy will grow by 8.5 per cent in 2011-12, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Wednesday said the recent hike in prices of petroleum products will not have much impact on the fiscal deficit.
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